


Six Lessons Behind The Purple Dress

by ysande



Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-13 21:56:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9143764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ysande/pseuds/ysande
Summary: How did Ezra pull off that purple dress?Written in 2008 for farad, who requested a conversation set after "Working Girls" where Ezra talks to one or two of the others about how he knows to play the role of a woman.





	

**1\. Watch and Learn**

"Obsahvation," declared Ezra. 

"Observation?" repeated Buck in disbelief. " _Where_ did you find a purple-dress wearin', falsetto-singin', uglier'n sin lady to ogle?"

Ezra gave him a pitying look. "I did not say "ogle", Buck, although I realise that is your natural inclination when it comes to the fairer sex."

Buck waved one hand dismissively. "Ogle, observe. Same thing, really."

"On the contrary. To ogle is to look at someone with lecherous intent. To observe is to carefully note the details of the scene."

"Fine, fine," Buck conceded. "But where'd you do your "observing"? I spend plenty of my time around ladies, and I don't reckon I could pass for one."

"The purpose of your time with the ladies is pleasure," Ezra pointed out.

"Well, yeah! Ain't nothin' more pleasurable than some quality time with the ladies, if you get my meaning."

"It'd be difficult not to," Ezra said dryly. "However, that's precisely my point."

"It is?"

"You're desiring to know the ladies on a - shall we say - physical level. To understand how the mind of a lady works, you have to look at the small things - the way she combs her hair. The way her hips move beneath her dress. The colour of her cheeks, the ink used to darken the lines of her eyes."

Buck looked taken aback. "Geez, Ezra. Never realise you paid so much attention."

"That," said Ezra ruefully, "was my second point."

"Second...?"

"Never pay a lady's trimmings so much attention that you forget to pay attention to the lady herself." Ezra grimaced. "They'll clean you right out if you do that."

Buck broke out laughing. "Yeah, I've known some hellcats in my day. Drive you crazy all night and vanish with all the money you had in the mornin'. Boy. You know how that feels, hey?"

Ezra looked amused. " _I_ was speaking about poker, Mr Wilmington."

**2\. Practice Makes Perfect**

"Never," protested Ezra.

"At least once," pressed Vin. 

"Mr Tanner, I am insulted by your suggestion that I make a regular habit out of - of dressing up as a _woman_! May I remind you that this current event was a direct consequence resulting from threats of actual bodily harm from yourself and Mr Larabee?"

Vin snorted. "Ezra, we've threatened you with a whole lot worse in the past without much effect. If you really were dead against it, wild buffalo couldn'ta dragged you into it."

Ezra shrugged, unable to deny this accusation. But - never one to give up the war just because he lost a battle - he countered, "That merely shows my dedication to my duty. It bears no reflection on whether I've pulled the same ruse before."

"Musta done," decided Vin. "You looked too comfortable in that get-up for it to have been the first time. You even got the hang of those shoes, and those heels were at least four inches off the ground."

The problem with sharpshooters, Ezra thought darkly, was that they tended to notice the _details_. He gave a long-suffering sigh. "Very well," he said irritably. "But if you so much as breathe one word of this to anyone else, I will see to it that you suffer swift and brutal retaliation - I will personally..."

"Alright, alright!" Vin threw up his hands in defeat. Ezra didn't miss the gleam of amusement in his eyes. "So?"

Ezra sighed again. "The first time..."

" _First_ time!" crowed Vin, but he was quickly silenced by Ezra's glare. "Sorry. You were sayin'?"

"The first time, it was entirely unplanned. I had been advising a family on strategic investments. They took it upon themselves to do a little ill-advised digging around and disapproved of some of my choices of, ah, investments. Their lovely daughter was fond of me, though, and convinced me to put on one of her dresses. I climbed out of her brother's bedroom, it being the one with a balcony."

"Did anyone catch you?" 

"Not exactly." Ezra hesitated. "I did hear later, though, that the brother's engagement was called off. Something about witnesses seeing a lady climbin' out of his window two weeks before the wedding. I'm sure that was just an unfortunate coincidence, however..." 

"And the next time?" asked Vin, grinning broadly.

"The other time," Ezra said resignedly. "My dearest mother had, shall we say, unilaterally varied the terms of an understanding that we had had about the division of profits. To cut a long story short, she had - mistakenly, I'm sure -" Ezra's voice dripped with sarcasm, "deposited my share of, well, everything into an account accessible only by her."

Vin stared at him. "You impersonated your mother?"

"I was left with no other choice!" Ezra protested.

"Your _mother_?"

**3\. The Clothes Maketh The Man**

"Greed is a cardinal sin, you know," Josiah said gravely as Ezra blissfully unwrapped the tailored shirt that had arrived for him on the afternoon's stagecoach. 

"Ah, but vanity isn't," replied Ezra amiably. "Neither - for which I am eternally grateful - is the desire to take advantage of what small bastions of civilization are available in this backwater town."

"The real measure of a man is made up of that which lies in his heart, not the clothes upon his back," reproached Josiah.

"That's where you're mistaken," Ezra informed him. "Fortunes can be made or lost on the workmanship on a jacket."

"Yes - the tailor's," said Josiah said blandly.

"Very clever," Ezra said appreciatively, "if a little near-sighted."

"Are you suggesting that clothing is more significant than, say, breeding?" 

"Of course!" exclaimed Ezra. "To the right person, the shirt on your back will divulge more about your history and your disposition than a look through your personal papers. Put a maid's frock on a girl and she'll become invisible. Dress the same girl up in silks and furs and she'll garner more suitors than she knows what to do with. People generally see what they expect to see, and what they expect to see is generally dictated by the clothes that someone is wearing."

Despite himself, Josiah was curious.

"What does my shirt say about me?"

Ezra made a face. "Josiah, I'm pretty sure it's asking you to take a bath."

Josiah guffawed, slapping Ezra on the back with enough force to make him cough. "Good lord," Ezra wheezed beneath his breath.

"How about you?" Josiah asked, grinning.

"It says that I am a gentleman of means, naturally," Ezra smiled. "That my company is civilized, that I am unsuited for menial work, and that I am of upstanding moral character."

Josiah snorted. "So, lies all round then, is it?"

Ezra glanced at him, and winked.

**4\. Sing A Song of Sixpence**

"I miss the singing," Nathan said thoughtfully.

Ezra blinked. "Excuse me?"

"The singing. From back South. Ain't much I miss about the place, but I miss the way people used to sing."

"I can't say I recall much by way of singing," Ezra said doubtfully, thinking back to his own childhood in the South. "At least, none that I would recall with fondness."

"Maybe it was different for you," Nathan allowed. "On Master Jackson's plantation, it was real powerful. We'd sing as we worked, when we could. The old Master didn't like it much, but it kept us goin' when food was runnin' out and water was scarce, and it kept us warm in the middle of winter. Ain't nothing like the sound of a hundred voices, all singing together at the end of long, hard day. People all sing so different, here. Proper-like, in church."

Ezra considered the rich, untrained voices of the gospel singers to the reedy, dutiful Sunday hymns which could be heard in Four Corners. "There's a certain lack of... spirit," he agreed.

Nathan paused. "You sing real nice, Ezra."

Ezra eyed him suspiciously.

"You do," Nathan insisted. "That weren't even your own singing voice back there, but you could carry a note real clear."

"Thank you?" said Ezra uncertainly.

"First honest thing I've known you to be good at," Nathan added with a sly look.

"That's entirely untrue," objected Ezra. "I'm skilled at... at..." He stopped. Honest work was not something he usually indulged in.

Nathan grinned. "Ain't no-one told you you've got a nice voice before?"

Ezra shook his head. "Singing was always looked upon as a singularly unprofitable endeavour."

"You should do more of it," Nathan urged. "Seems like you've got a talent for it."

A pleased smile played around the edges of Ezra's mouth. "It might be something to consider," he said thoughtfully. And then a wicked light came into his eyes. "It might not be as unprofitable as Mother's always maintained."

**5\. Practical Application of Theories Studied**

"Who was the best whore you ever had?" Chris asked, voice warm and slurred with whiskey.

Ezra held his own glass up to the light and squinted at the inch of amber liquid that sloshed at the bottom. "Genevieve," he announced. "She was an exemplary specimen of womanliness."

Chris chuckled. "That good?"

In the dark, Ezra's smile was very bright. "Mr Larabee, you have no idea." He brought the glass to his lips and ran his tongue thoughtfully over the whiskey-flavoured rim. "I was eighteen when I met her. I had previously considered myself a young man of some experience and, ah, skill."

Chris's laughter sounded in the night. "Don't we all when we're eighteen?"

"Ah, yes indeed. Genevieve sought to further my education in that regard. She taught me patience." There was, perhaps, an almost inaudible intake of breath. "A finer appreciation for the small things. The importance of timing and the signals which pass for tells. How to receive pleasure." His glass empty now, Ezra slid his tongue inside to catch the last, fiery drops. "And how to give pleasure."

Wordlessly, Chris leaned across to refill Ezra's glass.

"She imparted her fondness for play and exploration." Ezra gestured at himself, dressed more casually in deference to the heat of the night. His cravat was missing and his shirt-sleeves were rolled up. His hair was damp and curling in the humid air. "There's a certain freedom in being comfortable within the confines of one's own skin. Familiarity with your own body's tendencies and reactions allows you to lose yourself in those of someone else."

"Do you do that often?" Chris wanted to know.

Ezra drained the whiskey in one, long swallow. "As often as the need arises," he said.

**6\. When In Doubt, Save Yourself**

"Why'd you do it, Ezra?" asked JD, trotting after Ezra as he headed towards the saloon.

"Do what, exactly?"

"Dress up like a lady yesterday."

"Self-preservation is a powerful instinct, son," he said dryly.

JD's brow creased. "But..." 

"It's a fine instinct to have," said Ezra emphatically. "You might want to think on that. Develop a sense of it, I mean. I'd advise you begin by spending less time with Misters Larabee and Tanner. Not only do they lack any comprehension of the concept at all, they encourage others to lose theirs as well."

"But that's what makes 'em brave," JD said loyally.

"There's a fine line between bravery and stupidity," Ezra told him. "Chris and Vin seem not only to take delight in crossing that line, but they do so whooping like savages all the way."

"You dressed up as a lady," JD pointed out, as if that settled everything.

"I told you," said Ezra. "Self-preservation. Wickes was much less likely to shoot a lady entertainer than a man going in with guns drawn. It was a simple equation of probabilities."

JD looked confused. "Then wouldn't it have been a better idea for self-preservation if you'd never gone at all? I mean, maybe the dress was helpful once you got to Wickestown, but you could have just stayed in Four Corners and not gotten yourself involved at all."

Ezra looked shocked.

"Fact is," JD continued, "putting on that dress and walking into Wickestown was probably about as far away from self-preservation as you can get. I reckon you're in Chris and Vin territory, now." A boyish, joyful grin lit up JD's face. "I reckon it was a good thing for everyone that you were willing to sacrifice a little bit of pride and put yourself in danger like that. Thanks, Ezra."

And JD slipped into the feed store next to the Saloon, leaving Ezra alone on the boardwalk outside.

Ezra stared after him. For once in his life, he had been left completely speechless.


End file.
